Travel Notes | Liuhe is not Liuyang River

During the Qingming Festival holiday, have you gone out for a walk?

Today I went to Liuhe Ancient Town in Taicang.

Liuhe Ancient Town is a very low-key ancient town located at the mouth of the Yangtze River and affiliated with Taicang, Jiangsu Province. It faces Chongming Island across the river to the east, and borders Shanghai to the south. The dividing line is Liuhe River.

Compared with most ancient towns, it is not that ancient. Its famous history probably dates back to the Yuan and Ming Dynasties.

It is also not that distinctive, except for the famous Tianfei Palace - Zheng He set out from here on seven of his voyages to the West to worship Mazu, the goddess of the sea, for peace.

The Baiyue people are good at water and boating, and have worshiped Mazu/Tianfei, the goddess of the sea, since the Northern Song Dynasty. Mazu belief and custom has been officially included in the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO, becoming China's first belief and custom world heritage.

Liuhe Tianfei Palace/Mazu Temple was built in the Northern Song Dynasty. The original main hall was destroyed by fire in 1911, with only the pillar capstone remaining.

The place is not big, but it is quite a unique cultural heritage.

After visiting Tianfei Palace, go to other places in the ancient town.

There are many miniature art galleries in the ancient town.

On the first floor is an introduction by a certain folk musician.

On the second floor is a certain calligrapher and painter.

Guess what Oracle wrote?

The answer is here.

You can rely on mountains to eat mountains, and you can rely on water to eat water. There are always saury sellers along the Yangtze River. But since the author doesn’t eat fish, I just took a look.

Yao duck and Yao goose are local specialties.

That character is pronounced ao. (I just found out too)

After smelling the delicious fragrance, I went in and took a look at the price, and the author ran away.

Probably because it is close to Shanghai, most of the tourists are Shanghainese.

There is a shop selling glass and ceramic products in the town, with a wide range of products, from Western coffee cups to Chinese purple clay pots, from men’s favorite white wine glasses and red wine glasses to women’s favorite storage jars.

The author bought two huge glass storage boxes. 20 a. See picture left. The one on the right was bought on Taobao for about ten yuan. You can see how affordable it is.

There was a Shanghai uncle next to me who wanted to buy a dozen white wine glasses. The author was worried about whether the expensive Shanghai house would have room to store so many things (dog heads).

There are houses with the characteristics of the Republic of China in the alley.

old barber shop

This stone-supported house is probably the brother of the stilted building.

This old pontoon bridge looks neither old nor buoyant. It may be that the man who built the bridge was named Bushi.

Passing by an unknown old house, I felt like I could go and shoot a live broadcast of a haunted house adventure at night.

After visiting the ancient town, we headed east along the main road Zhenghe Street to visit the Yangtze River.

It is said that Evergrande has developed a riverside park. The weather is nice and many children are flying kites. But I have to say that there are not as many styles as those in Weifang.